


empty, almost victorious

by sorrens



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Agoraphobia, Angst, Anorexia, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Comfort/Angst, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Gabriel is a dick, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, No Betas We Fall Like Crowley, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Religious Conflict, Self-Esteem Issues, but we knew that, proofreading? haven't heard of it, slowest of burns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-07 20:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19857574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrens/pseuds/sorrens
Summary: In light of his exile from heaven, Aziraphale seeks acceptance from the angels once more, and begins to deny himself one of earth's pleasures.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW for disordered eating - references to body image/checking and restricting. Allusions to self-harm in later chapters.

There was always an afternoon lull in the bookshop, when all of the morning’s customers had been graciously expelled and those afternoon browsers had yet to muster up the courage to face the owner’s icy glare as they perused his collection. During this lull, Aziraphale would often take pleasure in closing the shop briefly to pop around to the bakery across the road for an almond croissant. That was before the apocalypse came and went, a non-event in the whole scheme of human history. Now, he’d found it ever more difficult to pry himself away from his towering shelves and cluttered desk. As though, in light of their demise (and subsequent reconstitution by a certain son of satan), they were liable to spontaneously combust should he look away for even a second.

It didn’t escape the bakery’s notice that their more consistent and friendly customer had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth, and it only took a few days of Aziraphale’s absence before the counter girl resolved to deliver his regular order to the shop instead. _Must be overwhelmed with customers_ , she’d reasoned. Not that she’d ever set foot in Azira Fell and Co, but it emanated an aura of exclusivity and rarity despite its dusty windows and peeling paintwork.

Jenna, brown paper bag in hand, shouldered open the heavy front door to the tinkling of bells.

“Mr Fell?” She called, but stopped in her tracks. The place was empty, not a single customer in sight. The dust caused her nose to tickle as a small pile of books collapsed to her right and a dishevelled Aziraphale emerged.

“Ahh—“ the man looked slightly more drawn out and flat than the times Jenna had served him in the bakery. There was no sparkle, or soft smile, his posture was dejected, waistcoat missing a button. There was a glimmer of recognition, though, he’d seen that face somewhere but couldn’t quite place it.

“I brought over your croissant. We’ve missed you the last few days.”

 _Ah, the bakery!_ The one he couldn’t visit because he had to keep an eye on

“…My books.” The angel gestured the the piles that littered the shop. “Sorry, couldn’t quite pull myself away from them.”

He crossed the room and fished in his pocket, producing a five pound note.

“Thank you dear, that was ever so thoughtful.” But the smile didn’t reach its usual intensity, in fact, it seemed more like a grimace.

“No problem.”

Jenna left the man standing amongst his piles of tomes, looking slightly lost and hurried across the road to the bakery, where a line of customers had grown. When the sky began to grow dark, the angel was still huddled in amongst his shelves, books stacked around him as if a fortress protecting him from… whatever there was to be protected from.

 _Freedom_?

His days since Armageddon should have been pleasantly filled with outings with Crowley (which he’d stedfast resisted, wouldn’t it be better to have a drink in the bookshop?), them toasting to the absence of their superiors breathing down their necks. Maybe some quaint little cafes with petit fours followed by a walk in the park. But, instead, darkness had well and truely blanketed the sky when he decided that the croissant, slowly staling in the little bag, wasn’t quite what would satisfy him right now.

Crowley was in a bar some six streets away and, had he known that the angel had just binned one of his favourite foods, he would’ve been sober and around in seconds flat. But he didn’t, because Aziraphale had withdrawn since the Apocalypse that hadn’t, now his outings seemed cursed to those spent drinking alone at a bar, the empty chair of his best friend haunting his peripheral vision.

_How do you know if an angel is worthy?_

It’s perhaps not as black and white as Aziraphale had once believed. He had spent centuries convinced in the binary wherein angels were beings of good and demons of evil, and yet, now he was facing a conundrum maybe even worse than Falling. He was an angel who didn’t quite fit in. He cast his mind back to the taunts of Gabriel, the finger jabbed at his soft midriff, the sneer of the other angels as they cornered him on the street. He thought back to his brief time fighting for heaven, before he was introduced to the earthly delights of treacle tarts and sushi. He was, had been, _well_ , slimmer. It was in his control, by golly it was one of the few things he could control now that he thought about it. The only other thing that came to mind, to make him an outcast, was his friendship with Crowley. It wasn’t that he exactly wanted to get back in heaven’s good books, to be their star pupil, no, he just craved that sense of belonging again that had been torn away when he’d failed to perish in hellfire.

He wanted to feel… _angelic_ again. He remembered, years ago, Gabriel’s displeasure at hearing that Aziraphale would willingly “taint his vessel” with the scourge that was human cuisine. Was that the path back to righteousness? A small act which could prove that, despite everything, he hadn’t “gone native”.

Someone knows, it’d be less of a sacrifice than trying to cut ties with Crowley. Sure, as his body had grown accustomed to food, there was a slight emptiness in his stomach that would usually be filled by a still-warm croissant, but the emptiness would never compare to that of casting the demon out of his life, just for the chance to be redeemed in heaven’s eyes.

No, there was a different strength in this kind of empty, almost victorious, and as the night wore on Aziraphale began to see why humans would fast for their god.

He was redeemable.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s going on six days since he’d heard from the angel and, whilst it wasn’t a feeling he’d admit to, Crowley felt worried. Worry seeped in to his life as daily bouts of recklessness — angry rows with strangers who looked at him funny and vicious driving tactics (even by his standards), to name a few. It was only at the tail end of a bar fight that had started over… ~~well, he couldn’t quite remember that detail~~ … that he had realised that it wasn’t the, oh, whatever they were fighting about, that was fuelling his emotions. The small sliver of introspection that acknowledged he needed to find the angel was a vastly welcome, if lonely, addition to his prefrontal cortex. Soon it was joined by a voice of reason, that suggested that, perhaps, it would be better if the demon walked to the bookshop rather than blast his Bentley’s horn whilst doing 110 in a 60 zone.

It’s what Aziraphale would have wanted.

Not only was the bookshop closed when he arrived, but the blinds were drawn and the previous day’s newspapers sat sodden on the doorstep. Without ceremony (or knocking for that matter), Crowley kicked the door open. He was hit with a waft of stale air. Stale air that belonged in any second hand bookshop, of musty pages and worn leather and old people. But, _no_ , this was not the usual scent of hot cocoa and leather polish and, care, that enveloped AZ Fell and Co. This was not the warm fragrance of a bookshop loved.  
“Angel?” With an unnervingly tidy (and unnervingly unoccupied) desk glaring at him, Crowley made a beeline for the backroom. Worry was ousted by dread, that the angel had packed his stuff and quit town without letting him know. Of course, there’d be a reason why he’d leave Crowley in the dark, _maybe it was…_  
“Angel!” The huddled mass of blankets on the couch stirred slightly in recognition, but as Aziraphale emerged from the tangle, worry crowded back in a jostling for front position — tearing at the Demon’s heartstrings.

There was something terribly wrong.  
The Wrongness was borne in the pallid lines on Aziraphale’s face and the, was he wearing a sweatshirt? Crowley had to take off his glasses to make sure he was seeing things correctly.

“…Crowley.” Aziraphale’s acknowledgment of his friend, despite all the demon had just witnessds, was the proverbial twist of the knife. It wasn’t merely that his tone carried surprise, but also dismay and disappointment and — if Crowley was right — maybe even a hint of distrust?

“Hey, joining the sloths are we?” Crowley cracked a weak smile and lowered himself into an armchair.

“Mmmph.” That was probably the most inarticulate noise he’d ever heard Aziraphale make and normally Crowley would relish in pointing this out. But, right now, silence felt like currency.

He let it linger as Aziraphale fussed around with his blankets, nestled like a cat in a heap. _Okay, was this the angelic version of Depression? Should the demon be robbing a chemist for some Prozac, or something?_ He mentally kicked himself as he remembered that these medications took weeks to work, if at all, it was one of his less proud achievements and now it was coming back to bite him in the arse.  
He couldn’t bear to see the angel in this state for that long. He briefly considered crossing the room to settle next to Aziraphale. And then what? Give him a hug? Pat him on the back and tell him that everything was alright? Tell him that you love—

_Dear God when did he turn soft?_

“Was wondering if you wanted to visit that little Polish bakery with me?” Crowley offered the mound of blankets tentatively. Whilst not one for baked goods himself, the demon was always on the lookout for locations which suited both their interests. Whilst Aziraphale enjoyed one of the best Sernik this side of the channel, Crowley would eavesdrop on the biting political commentary of the shopkeepers, which involved a pleasant amount of swearing and the right amount of shade, for those who understood Polish. What a treat.  
“I don’t really feel like it, dear.”  
Okay, what the **fuck** was going on?

“Dinner at the Ritz? Sushi? Sushi on that ridiculous-little-conveyor-belt-thing? Macarons from Paris? Macarons IN Paris? Please angel, I want to go somewhere.” Crowley’s petulant whine barely concealing his panic: An angel had fail to manifest itself from inside the blanket pile at the offering of Paris.

“Look, Crowley, will you just shut up?” The mound heaved and suddenly Aziraphale was glaring at him, face colouring with frustration that nearly restored its usual rose warmth.  
Well, that worked. Crowley was speechless. He’d never had the angel talk to him like that. In fact, he’d not even heard that tone when Aziraphale had been negotiating with the ProLifers about what “God really wanted”.  
Crowley stood up wordlessly and went to the kitchen. Too stunned for a miracle, he set about making tea the old-fashioned way (and one mug of tea the Crowley way — which was a double scotch barely concealed in one of the angel’s floral teacups.)  
He hesitated. Maybe a triple.

 _Milk, one sugar._  
_Milk, one sugar._  
Crowley repeated it like a mantra as he fished in the fridge for some milk.  
“Oh my. Aziraphale your milk is very…” he sniffed the carton and gagged “…dead.”  
There was no reply.  
He sifted through the other items in the fridge, all resembling various stages of attempts at bacterial culture. How odd. Crowley found the mental strength to miracle some milk for the tea himself. As he binned the offending milk carton with disgust, he noticed a croissant sitting meekly atop the various detritus.

Intact.

Uneaten.


	3. Chapter 3

“What the fuck is this?” The demon held up the pastry like a deadly weapon (and admittedly, it was stale enough to do a good impression of being a rock.) Aziraphale looked up, but barely looked at it and certainly didn’t look at Crowley.

He shrugged (well, the blankets shrugged).

Like his body, it was as if his brain were encased in a soft hug of doonas. It felt, _well_ , nice. Numb, disorientating _sure_ , but altogether nice. It also made thinking on the spot an impossibility. When the angel was unable to give an answer the croissant was employed as a projectile after all, and Aziraphale rose off the couch, rubbing his left temple where it had hit with indignation.

“What was that—“

But he caught Crowley’s expression as he regarded his best friend.

Even though Aziraphale’s current attire seemed to be five sizes too big and drowning the man, Crowley could still make out the hollow to the angel’s cheeks. That hadn’t been there the last time they spoke. Eyes were slightly sunken and framed with exhaustion.

Aziraphale, once round and soft and just so purely _pure_ , was now shrinking, all angular and harsh like the way he’d snapped at Crowley earlier.

* * *

Aziraphale was dimly aware that Crowley was angry, probably. He wasn’t quite sure what about, but as he glared at the demon who’d just launched a croissant at his head, the room began to swim around him.

Oh, he’d stood up too fast again. Black spots wandered across his field of vision and he began pitching forward. Forward, and straight on to his marble coffee table with a sickening _crack._

* * *

Stupid humans and their stupid biology. Actually, stupid vessel. Actually, stupid Aziraphale. If he’d never gotten his body accustomed to sustenance, it’d never know what it was missing out on. Like Crowley had a questionable relationship with expensive alcohol, the angel’s body demanded food. When he began to fast, it cried out in pain. When it realised he wasn’t listening, it slowly became undone.

In the first 24 hours, the hunger was gnawing at him. Reluctant to leave the bookshop, he found himself fantasising about where he’d like to get lunch. Of course, he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, or shouldn’t — one of those. So he just sat idly at his desk reminiscing about his favourite place to get Baklava. After a while, he reprimanded himself, isn’t the reason to fast to have more time to get closer to God? Or do good things? Or— Honestly, the angel didn’t have a very good grasp of what it achieved in the religious sense. What he did have a good grasp of was the softness of his stomach, that would collapse into rolls whenever he was seated. He was acutely aware of it and it bothered him like a troublesome itch. He longed to claw at it, to pull it off, to make things right. It was a tenuous link, granted, between being slim and being angelic, deep down it wasn’t quite about either of those things. No. Aziraphale just craved a sense of control that he’d lost since the world had failed to collapse around him. Now he was going to tear his walls down on the inside.

He found himself on his feet. Reorganising (or just organising, he’d never admittedly had a system), ordering, dusting, reordering and soon he took out a ruler and made sure that every book was sitting on the shelves exactly 7.5 centimetres from the edge. The number was arbitrary. In fact, the whole exercise was trivial. But it didn’t matter, because somehow that 7.5 centimetres partially took away from the ache in his stomach.

His usual nighttime routine was finding a book and spending the hours until early morning pouring over it. This didn’t quite appeal after a day spent tidying. His legs ached. He collapsed on the couch and, for the first time in however many centuries, fell asleep.

He woke up with what he assumed was a bad hangover. His head felt fuzzy, mouth dry and there were numerous stabbing pains in his abdomen. 

“Crowley?” The angel called out, assuming that he too was passed out somewhere in the vicinity. There was no reply. Then the reality of the night before came crashing down around him. He saw the neat shop around him. The croissant sitting patiently on the coffee table. Nice try, not today. He swiftly carried it to the bin and dumped it before he could change his mind.

There was no demon to crack jokes and tempt him with ridiculous delicacies. No, there was him and his thoughts and God. He was with company.

He was redeeming.

Crowley tried to stop around later in the morning, and he wanted to taunt the angel about how he’d finally done the cleaning up and _“Oh people might actually want to come in now”_ but Aziraphale was unwillingly curt and, when the demon realised he wasn’t about to abandon his straightening of the picture frames to chat, he left with a hasty goodbye.

2 days without food was nothing. Crowley had gone without food for centuries. Aziraphale knew it was slightly different in his case. Crowley maintained his corporal form in other ways, but the angel had grown needlessly reliant on human nutrition. He had heard stories of humans going for months at a time without food, and cursed his stomach as it rumbled in betrayal. As darkness fell over the bookshop, he was draped across an armchair without the energy to turn on a light. Now was as good a time as any to talk to Her. Maybe she’d listen, because he was doing this for Her. Surely She noticed these kinds of things?

That’s the only reason why humans would willingly stop eating: when they don’t feel heard.

He did none of this kneeling, or hand clasping nonsense. These were routines imbedded in human society that unlike, breakfast/lunch/dinner, he was quite happy to abstain from. Instead he just stared upwards and began to speak.

“I know I haven’t been the best angel. Well, no, I’ve probably been the worst now I think about it. But I want to turn it around. I want to be divine again. Earth was so complicated compared to Heaven and, I used to think that’s what I loved about it, but it’s actually terrifying. There’s danger and hatred and feelings at every turn. I have been tainted by their very natures. I have lost my way, in more ways than one. But I want to be better. I want to be closer to you.”

He hesitated, there was a clause to that that he couldn’t bring himself to add: _I want to be closer to you but also not leave Crowley_. But She wouldn’t like that anymore than the other angels had. She would make him choose.

“I am abstaining from food to prove that I am worthy.” He peered up at the ceiling, as if expecting Her judgement to occur then and there. Silence. 

Which left Aziraphale with the question: was he doing enough?

Retribution wasn’t very quick and the angel was running low on patience. This may, or may not, be due to his low blood sugar levels. Regardless of its origin, he was heaven-bent on doing something about it. And, with very little he could do to speed up the process, he found himself running between his place on the couch and the full length mirror in his bedroom every hour. He’d long since abandoned his waistcoat, and hitched up his shirt to reveal a rounded stomach. He grabbed at it wildly, fingers pinching the folds and leaving harsh red marks. He was aware that some believed that repetition was a form of insanity, but he was equally convinced that each time he cowered in front of the mirror, his stomach was getting bigger, not smaller. 

_Best to check again in 10 minutes._


	4. Chapter 4

He’d long since lost track of the days. It was either the next day, or possibly a year later, that Crowley showed up again at the bookstore and put the angel on edge with his infernal existence. From the indeterminate period of silence and fuzzy introspection, the demon’s voice was grating and unwelcome and he couldn’t-just-take-a-hint and leave.

Aziraphale was vaguely aware that he shouted. Probably more than once. Whatever he’d said, it had worked, because Crowley had now left. He burrowed further in to the blankets and resumed his state of semi-unconsciousness.

Next thing he knew, the voice was back, and a furious string of curses cut through the air. Aziraphale stood up wearily and squinted at what Crowley was holding and, well, he couldn’t see _shit_ as the world spun in front of him and so he wasn’t quite sure why the demon was angry but before he could begin to make sense of anything, the coffee table approached his face and — oh! 

Aziraphale did not have a bed because he didn’t sleep. Regardless, he woke up in one. The first thing he saw was Crowley, knelt at the bedside, face buried in his hands.

“Aziraphale!” He scrambled to his feet when the angel stirred and hesitated awkwardly at the bedside. Now that the room was coming in to focus, Aziraphale realised they were still in his back room, the bed (probably miracled) to squeeze in to the space between shelves, where the coffee table once sat. 

“You’ve got a—“ Crowley couldn’t quite meet his eye, but sniffed and pointed at his forehead. _Oh_ , now he was aware of the throbbing in his head, the pain of the impact trying valiantly to be felt over the diffuse ache of the rest of his form.

Crowley busied himself was something nearby and was back at the angel’s side, holding out a cup of hot chocolate. “I think you’re really sick. There’s something wrong. You need fluids.”

He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses and Aziraphale cursed this fact. There was a pain, a shock, bleeding through the amber eyes that caused a pain in his stomach that the angel knew couldn’t be blamed on hunger. He moved the cup closer and brought it to Aziraphale’s lips, which instinctively snapped shut. The effect was a small waterfall of lukewarm hot cocoa spilling over his face and the linen sheets.

“What—“ the demon began, but Aziraphale kept his mouth resolutely closed, and halfheartedly began to shake himself clean. Then he realised he could fix it with a minor miracle. Then he found that he couldn’t muster the energy for that exercise. He went back to shaking his head like a dog in a sprinkler.

This caused a fresh wave of nausea.

The bed dipped and suddenly Crowley was stretched beside him, their shoulders touching. This cause him to flinch slightly, and he willed himself to stop breathing (another stupid human habit), as his brain revelled in and panicked at the slight touch.

“I, I—“ Aziraphale shuffled over slightly, so that they were no longer touching but couldn’t help noticing the way his arm made the demon’s look like a matchstick in comparison. Why did this engender a wave of uncontrollable jealousy? Of hatred? He inspected it closely and realised it wasn’t hatred towards the other, rather, a festering self-loathing that grew louder around the thinner body. Crowley was less-than-holy, a being of sin, and yet, Aziraphale found himself idolising the demon’s bony physique and sharp edges. What he wouldn’t give— and, once again, he was questioning his motives. How would being like Crowley bring him closer to God? It was quite nonsensical when you looked at it with a rational brain, but in his starved state it made perfect sense: Crowley, in his abstinence from food, was unequivocally more holy that Aziraphale had ever been. The angel had succumbed to the sin of gluttony very early in his journey on earth. Crowley, despite all his minor flaws, was not guilty of a single vice. He was deserving of redemption. Suddenly Aziraphale was battered with another wave of self-loathing for assuming that he, himself, was foremost worthy of God’s pardon, when the most pure soul he’d ever encountered was currently sitting in measured silence beside him.

It wasn’t Crowley’s silence to break. So he waited. Watched the dust particles dance through the air. Felt the bed dip as Aziraphale shifted further away from him. He was biting his tongue to keep tears at bay. He sniffed and looked around for his sunglasses, which were nowhere nearby, and accidentally caught the angel’s eye. He was crying too.

There was a moment or two before Aziraphale started speaking, in a rush of words that his brain was in no state to edit.

“I don’t want to eat. I don’t know, it’s silly but I thought that— well— because angels aren’t supposed to eat that I was a failure, or a disappointment. Well, I know I’m a disappointment, of course, heaven made that quite clear and Gabriel does love to repeat it, but I thought I could be better. I’m scared—” His voice broke slightly at the admission. “I’m scared that this world is too fragile, that I’ll look away for a second and it’ll all be up in flames. I can watch my books, sure, that’s easy enough but I’m powerless to stop anything if they decide to restart Armageddon. Oh it sounds so silly, but the thought of losing them again is unbearable and somehow not eating helps with that. I feel safer. I feel in control of something. And then I started and the feeling of emptiness is intoxicating. Painful, yes, but there’s this promise of a reward somewhere on the horizon that you can’t quite make out yet and it forces you to keep going. If I can just fix this,” he gestured at his stomach “I’ll be better.”

Crowley reached out and placed a hand on the angel’s stomach. He winced but didn’t brush him off.

“Fix what?”

“Are you really going to make me say it?”

“What?”

“I’m fat, Crowley,” he seethed, and pushed aside the demon’s hand so that he could grab fistfuls of his stomach. “I’m a glutton. I’m the laughing stock of heaven, in so many ways. I have to redeem myself someway, and I can’t bear the alternative.”

“What’s the alternative?”

Aziraphale’s grip on his stomach slackened and he sighed.

“Are you going to make me say it?”

“What?”

“The alternative is breaking things off with you.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Crowley said softly, and began to fidget with his jacket. “So, you thought if you gave up food that—“

“— God would forgive all of my sins.” Aziraphale finished bitterly.

“Come on angel, conversing with a demon every now and then is hardly a sin.” Crowley said lightly.

The angel’s reply was so quiet it was barely the echo of a whisper.

“But loving one—“

_Oh._

Despite the warmth blossoming in his chest, Crowley resisted the temptation to pursue this any further. Rather, left the confession hanging - something to unpack another time.

“I don’t think your corporeal form is dealing very well without food.” Crowley rerouted the conversation by stating the obvious. “What would it take to get you to eat again?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “I just- can’t,”

Crowley reached out and grasped his hand, pulling it in closer with a tight squeeze.

“But I’m worried about you.” He said gravely, and somehow his tone was enough to make this a confession in and of itself. An answer to the angel’s confession. _Me too. Me too._

Aziraphale’s eyes widened at the words and he took a rattling breath.

“Oh, my dear, I didn’t mean to worry you.” He paused.

His hand returned the squeeze gently.

“Well, for you, I’ll try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to come. It'll be comfort, comfort, and more comfort, as Azi goes on his own lil recovery journey. Thanks for reading :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really dragging this out, thought it'd be an epilogue but EDs are some complicated stuff and this is turning in to a slow burn. More chapters to come, maybe at some point my depressed brain will get out of angst mode and this poor boy will get some happiness.

Crowley was reluctant to let go of his hand, but knew that someone had to make a move sometime. He traced his fingers gently over the angel’s palm and promised to be back in a few minutes. Leaving the bookshop, he hovered near the window briefly and watched Aziraphale through the dusty glass. He watched as the angel cautiously lifted up his shirt, and made to grab at his stomach again. His shoulders shook. His lips were pursed. Crowley hissed and took off towards the bakery. He was going to murder Gabriel. And, where was God in all of this shit? Watch out, he raised his eyes to the heavens, none of the heavenly bastards are safe.

He got four almond croissants and returned to the shop to find that Aziraphale had retreated under the covers.

“Hey, I’m back,” Crowley ran his hand over the lump in the blankets softly. They were shaking slightly. Aziraphale was crying. Shit. Crowley wasn’t good at the whole “feelings and empathy” stuff, it’s practically exclusionary criteria from becoming a demon. He was, however, good at knowing his angel. The revelation that his feelings were reciprocated made him all the more determined to fix things.

He settled on top of the covers and peered under the blanket. Aziraphale’s face red and blotchy but the demon’s appearance was enough to calm him down slightly. He clambered out of his blanket, wiping his eyes on his sleeves.

“Sorry dear, just being stupid.” He laughed weakly. He couldn’t quite meet Crowley’s eyes and the demon’s heart crumbled a little bit more.

“It’s not stupid,” he said softly and proffered the bag of croissants. Aziraphale took one gingerly and held it in his hand like it could maybe bite him.

“It’s stupid because I can’t explain it.” He sighed. “It’s stupid because I know that I’m smarter than this. I know that it’s not going to fix anything, it’s not going to change anything, and yet, I don’t want to stop.” He sniffed and raised the croissant to his mouth. Crowley held his breath for a beat, but the angel had changed his mind and had lowered it again. Now he focussed on tearing it apart, pastry flaking across the tartan blankets. “I just keep thinking, oh one more day of fasting and everything will feel better. I’ll feel at peace. I’ll feel wanted.”

“Wanted? As in wanted by heaven?”

Aziraphale made a show of raising one slivered almond to his lips. He grimaced as he swallowed it.

“I know we’re all caught up in this business about sides but, Crowley, they’re my family.”

“Family doesn’t mean shit.” Crowley growled “They’ve been awful to you. Why do you care so much what they think?”

Unbeknownst to the demon, Aziraphale had began to pack the destroyed croissant back in to the paper bag. He was going to miracle away the crumbs but couldn’t quite focus enough on it.

“Does it matter what I think of you?” 

Aziraphale looked up in surprise.

“Of course, dear.”

“Then why can’t that be enough. I think you’re perfect angel.” He leaned in closer but found Aziraphale backing away.

“Please don’t touch me,” Aziraphale’s voice was pained. Crowley dutifully retreated, albeit disappointed, and resolved to close the distance with words instead.

“D’you know what I like about ducks?” _Real profound Crowley_ , he thought, rolling his eyes back as if to glare at the speech centre of his brain. “They don’t bother to question the divine plan. It doesn’t involve them. As long as they get their bread, they’re content.”

He sorely missed the days when Aziraphale would snap back something along the lines of “Well, maybe they don’t question the divine plan because they have an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex compared to humans, Crowley.”

Instead he gave a noncommittal sniff.

“We’re ducks.” Oh someone, this was the worst pep talk he’d ever given (not that he’d given any before but this was a very low benchmark to commence with).

To his surprise Aziraphale giggled slightly. Was that funny? No, probably the malnutrition. Crowley rolled with it, at least pleased to have an engaged audience.

“We’re ducks, because we’re no longer privy to the divine plan. They’ve left us to our own devices. We’re basically human, with some perks, we just need to work out what our bread is.”

He cringed at the metaphor’s conclusion, but the angel didn’t seem to mind.

“What’s your bread?” He asked softly.

Crowley leaned back against the headboard. 

“Oh, I don’t know. Driving fast, good booze, botanic gardens…” _being with you_

The angel chuckled.

“Mine would’ve been: books, museums and cute little cafes.”

“Would’ve?” Crowley’s heart dipped in his chest. “Why can’t it be?”

Aziraphale fidgeted with the paper bag and huffed slightly.

“It’s not that easy Crowley, I don’t know. It’s like an addiction. I get a rush from feeling faint. From turning down food. From feeling nothing. I don’t think I’m ready to let that go just yet.”

Crowley bit his tongue to stop his thoughts from pouring out, but the bastards kept coming anyway.

“You can’t do this to me.” He pleaded. “I can’t watch you do this to yourself.”

Aziraphale stiffened.

“Do this… to you?!” His tone was incredulous. “Crowley, don’t you dare accuse me of doing this to, what, torture you? That I can just turn it off because it makes you sad? Don’t you dare try and make me feel guilty about trying to make things right with heaven.” He’d scrambled to his feet, throwing the bag back to Crowley, who sat motionless, mouth agape.

“Angel,” Crowley peered in to the bag. “You still haven’t eaten anything.”

Aziraphale’s face creased with pain and his anger dissolved in an instant.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all aboard the comfort train, choo choo, it begins

It was going on three days since Aziraphale had let a piece of almond pass his lips and nothing had changed. Crowley had a headache from the stuffiness of the bookshop but had refused to leave the angel’s side for even a few minutes to take a breather.

In the time that had passed, he’d had numerous attempts at trying to get Aziraphale to eat — most of which had devolved in to tantrums and him giving Crowley the cold shoulder. In all the centuries they’d known each other, tantrums had always been Crowley’s thing. So good at them he was, that he was the first to teach toddlers how to get their way.

The angel had always favoured a soft pout, and maybe some firm words to back it up. Whoever was slumped in the bed beside Crowley, however, was a shadow of that being, and the similarity was slipping away faster with every passing day.

  
Whilst the angel slept Crowley carded a hand through golden hair, brittle and faded like a bad dye job. This type of intimacy had only been possible since Aziraphale had let his guard down, so he didn’t have a reference for how his hair should feel. He paused as a few strands came out, tangled in his fingers. Definitely not like this.  
Crowley couldn’t shake the worry that addled brain that had created all of the moments up until now. The moment, of course, he was most focussed on was a certain confession, almost a week ago now that had lingered between them: neither capable of communicating on it in their current state.

So what if the angel was mistaken? What if it was a brief insanity, caused by the absence of sustenance, that had led him to admit his supposed love? As much as he worried about the origins of this, it didn’t change much in Crowley’s mind. Regardless of how Aziraphale felt about him, he knew the reciprocal was true and enough to drive him to try everything under the sun to bring the angel back to himself.

  
He theorised that if he could just find the right food, Aziraphale would yield. His first tactic was sentimentality. Suddenly, a baker who’d retired after being crippled with arthritis found his joints pain free, and in his elation, felt the need to bake a flourless orange cake and leave it on a doorstep in Soho.  
“No _way_ ,”  
As the demon paraded the cake past Aziraphale, he could’ve sworn the angel’s eyes popped out of his head.  
“Is that a… Di Angelo’s? It can’t be. He closed down a decade ago!”  
Crowley smirked.  
“Must’ve been magic. D’you want a slice?”  
The temptation lasted five seconds before the angel’s eyes dimmed and lost their sparkle once more. He slumped back in to the pillows, jaw set in a resolute stubbornness that Crowley had only become acquainted with in the last few days and wished dearly would piss-right-off.

He slide across the covers, cake in hand.  
“Remember, how we’d go their every Saturday—“  
“—After the theatre,”  
“And it would always be that little table on the terrace.”  
“And Di Angelo knew you were a fiend after liquor and would bring you his secret stashes.” Aziraphale giggled. “Oh, I miss that.”

The fondness in his voice made Crowley’s heart skip a beat. He’d done it, surely.  
And slowly, Aziraphale was leaning towards the cake, inhaling deeply and despite tired eyes and greying skin it’s still him radiating somewhere underneath and it’s divine. Maybe Crowley closed his eyes, just briefly, as if to capture the look of contentment on his angel’s face. When he reopened them, Aziraphale was holding out a slice of cake… to him.

“I— thanks.” It wasn’t quite his thing, but if it’s what it took to get him to eat again.  
He almost held his breath as Aziraphale cut another slice. This one was, granted, smaller than his. But he saw the reproach in the angel’s eyes and remembered the countless arguments that had started over trivial things these last few days. He decided to count it as a win.

“You go first.” There was an edge to his voice.  
_I’ll go first_. Crowley took a bite of his slice. Oh! It was quite nice. He licked the crumbs from his lips and saw the angel smirk, eyes following the trace of his tongue.

“It’s pretty good.” He bowed his head in admission, raising hands in surrender. “A bit saddened I haven’t tried it before.”  
There was a pause where they both watched each other nervously. Aziraphale seemed aware that the demon was waiting for him to take a bite and shifted uncomfortably.  
Eager to break the tension, Crowley leaned in slyly. “Who do you think is responsible for Oranges? They’re a bitch to peel, I think they’re one of ours.”  
Aziraphale rolled his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, Crowley saw the angel break off a piece of his cake in the process.

“Please, She’s responsible for all living things. Hell can’t honestly try to claim them. They’re one of Her’s.”

Aziraphale put the piece of cake in to his mouth and began to chew.

“Although, orange juice with pulp. You guys can have that one.” He mused.

Crowley nodded in agreement but inside he was beaming. Aware that the angel was skittish in the extreme, it took all of his effort to stifle a smile, and not stare at the small glow that began to emanate from that exhausted body. It wasn’t quite healing, but the briefest of happinesses, that he hoped they would accumulate in small moments, one by one, until they summated into a strength to get past this disorder.

Crowley was distantly aware that perhaps the guilt would come later. The scream and the crying and the heart wrenching self-loathing that had been bubbling just beneath the angel’s surface since the Apocalypse failed. He dismissed that worry for a later time.

“Who decided to name orange orange then angel? Seems a bit cruel, sounds like that dick Gabriel’s brainchild.”  
This earned him another radiant smile and a sprinkle of laughter from the other.

They sat there for thirty minutes arguing about etymology until, one by one, the crumbs disappeared.


	7. Chapter 7

There was great disparity between what Aziraphale wanted to be doing and what he could handle in his current state. He’d accumulated a pile of books he’d been meaning to read at his bedside but grew frustrated whenever he picked up a novel. His eyes would jump back and forth, skimming the page and seeing the words without reading them. The fog that he’d been feeling days earlier had settled as a heavy blanket in his mind, smothering the staccato of neurons firing. It wasn’t hard for things to fall apart these days. After spending half an hour pouring over the first page of The Secret History (a book he’d read before) unable to make sense of the first paragraph, he snapped and flung the book halfheartedly across the room (there was a sickening groan as the hardcover made contact with the woodwork).

Crowley looked up from his book. He’d resigned to reading to pass the times when the angel was unresponsive or asleep. He wasn’t enjoying himself, no, he’d never be caught dead with Harry Potter in his hands whilst undergoing his demonic duties. But nestled in a four poster bed in the middle of a sprawling bookstore — this was a nice change. It had been a few days since he’d seen his sunglasses, too, something he’d only just realised.

They were still at arms length, after all the days of the demon faithfully watching over Aziraphale. He’d kept the distance that the angel had expressed. If he’d ever felt tempted to move in a little closer it was the same desire that screamed at him to make the angel eat, to beg him to stop this, to pull up the blinds and push him out in to the real world. Too fast. Too fast. Patience was the only virtue Crowley would ever admit to.

“Hey, hey,” he instinctively reached up and caught Aziraphale’s wrists as the book hit the ground. The angel had been prone to fits of destruction, that usually turned inwards. First breaking something, then going forth to break himself in some way or another. Yesterday the sequence had gone: broken lamp, panic and despair, and ended in Crowley having to drag the fighting angel away from the shards of broken glass as Aziraphale’s hand reached for them in a fit of self-loathing.

Now he stilled. Maybe he panicked slightly at Crowley’s touch, but he didn’t pull away and allowed the demon to gently bring his arms down so that he was embracing him from behind. Crowley propped the Chamber of Secrets in front of the both of them and began to read out loud.

“I like this one, there’s a snake.” Aziraphale muttered, before relaxing slightly and eventually falling asleep in Crowley’s lap.

It was a big step, despite it only consisting of approximately 25 steps from the front of the bookshop to the local grocer. It was the furthest Aziraphale had journeyed since returning to his shop after armageddon and it seemed wholly unnecessary.

“Why can’t you go and get this stuff yourself?” Aziraphale was shredding the corner of the list in to tiny pieces as they stood at the window.

“I am going. I’m going with you. I need someone to tell me which are the good grapes.”

“Good grapes are good grapes, it’s not that hard.” He was trying his best to sound exasperated, but the whine of his words betrayed his fear.

Aziraphale had eaten a couple of things in the last few days, with a lot of cajoling and distraction techniques (each applied in appropriate measure) from Crowley but he’d remained stubbornly opposed to the outside.

“What’s worrying you?” Crowley laid hands on his shoulders. The angel didn’t flinch. They’d made slight progress over the days, still working towards an intimacy where Aziraphale wouldn’t shy away at a touch. As if he was ashamed, or undeserving, or perhaps fearing that Crowley’s touch would taint his grace bringing him even further away from heaven. Crowley’s stomach twisted at the thought and he buried it as deep as possible, hoping to never have to return to it.

“Well,” Aziraphale let out a sigh and began, as if he’d been preparing for this question for the last couple of weeks. Now Crowley thought about it, maybe he had, he mentally kicked himself for not asking sooner. Demons don’t get a Dummies Guide to Empathy in their training packs, okay?

“Firstly, I can’t leave here because I won’t know if my books are safe and I’m really quite worried that something might happen to them. You see, I’ve realised I can’t bear to lose them again. And- and, well, what if there’s someone looking for us? We’re not safe out there. If Hell gets you again, the real you, well—“ he shivered “and besides, I’m just so tired and I can’t see straight but I feel strong, okay. Like I’m doing right by Her.”

Crowley hissed.

“If she really cared she wouldn’t want this. She wouldn’t want any of this. She would punish you Herself if she had to, angel, but you’ve done nothing wrong.”

Aziraphale stared forlornly back.

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about that. If the ineffable plan is, ineffable, then maybe my mind tormenting me _is_ Her work. She wanted to punish me so she put punishing thoughts in to my head. I am her greatest failure and She is slowly torturing me from the inside out.”

 _Oh shit._ It was a valid point, though Crowley was certain this wasn’t the case, he had nothing to disprove it.

“Well, why haven’t you been redeemed yet?” Crowley countered. “You’ve stopped eating, you’re a shell of- of an angel! Surely you’ve suffered enough for Her.”

Aziraphale drew back and fixated on the dusty carpet between them.

“I think, I think it’s because I still have the _thoughts_.”

Crowley stilled, was this—

“I still have thoughts about you, my dear, and the almighty can’t be alright with that.” The second admission still made Crowley as breathless as if it were the first. Somewhere in the distance a street parade must have started up, because the cascading of bells overtook the room and the sky was lit up with spectacular vibrance. He didn’t want to complicate the matter further but, again, every inch of his soul was screaming _me too_.

Then the bells stopped and the fireworks extinguished as he realised he was standing between his angel and a life free from self-punishment. 

“I’ll go.” He said firmly thought, internally, he was hissing at his heart to reassemble and pull its damn weight. Aziraphale handed over the shredded list.

“Thank you dear.”

“No, I’ll leave.” Crowley bit his lip, barely concealing the crack in his voice. “I’ll find some place else to settle down so that there’s no issue between you and Her and you can be… safe”

“What? No! No, Crowley you can’t leave. I don’t want you to— I couldn’t possibly— but if you go—“ the angel was now more worked up than any of his breakdowns, but suddenly a sense of calm washed over him. He paused, closing his eyes for a brief second. The last remains of Crowley’s heart braced for the rejection.

Aziraphale kept his eyes closed as he spoke. Well, if he was going to blaspheme, he’d rather not address Her directly.

“I can learn to live without Her, Crowley. I don’t think I could live without you.” The angel felt slim arms snake around him, and leaned in to the touch. Crowley tried his best not to panic as his hand brushed against Aziraphale’s protruding spine as he drew him in for a hug, still apparent underneath the layer of sweaters. He closed the gap, pressing their bodies flush together, and rocked the angel gently from side to side as the monstrosity of his admission overtook him and he began to sob softly.

“I’ve lived without her for 6000 years, angel. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you the tricks.”


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

Sitting up there somewhere on Her cloud, God was distraught at the plight of the angel. She’d sworn, some millennia ago, to stop inserting herself in to the affairs of humans and angels alike. However, the longer she stayed silent and aloof, the more and more suffering was chalked up to “Her plan.” She’d stopped interfering long ago. Once established, humanity was a self-sufficient system and without the need of babysitting, in theory. Yet, they often referred to cruelty as if it were Hers, as if she could have ever planned for humans to devolve in to war and anguish as the centuries passed.

No, she was now merely an observer. For some strange reason, however, it was the torment of this one angel that had captured her attention after centuries of wilfully watching sufferers suffer in a hopes that things would ultimately work themselves out. This didn’t usually happen, much to Her dismay, but they had to learn to fix things when they fucked up. Eventually, they would. 

Maybe it was the nature of Aziraphale’s conflict. She had watched countless humans battle through the hurt and shame of forbidden affection. Too, she so frequently cast Her eye down to the hospitals that encircled those who struggled to eat — for whatever reason, their inability to express their hurt manifesting in a desire to disappear completely. There was an extraordinary overlap between the two. A boy, struggling with his sexuality, believing it to be immoral and wrong, turning this conflict inward to waste at his muscles and tear at his heart. Oh, so many humans mistook emptiness for a godliness, a control over something. 

The humans were her charges, sure, but the angels were like Her children. It was hard not to get attached when you spent millennia overseeing their work. To think that they, too, had lost touch with what She stood for and it was causing such pain. She couldn’t help but intervene for the first time in centuries, a subtle nudge to show Aziraphale Her true values. Her acceptance that had long been missing from the world.

* * *

This nudge entered the bookshop on the Monday morning as a teenage girl with black, brittle hair and a slightly downturned expression. This shouldn’t have been possible in the first place — all of the doors had been locked, the blinds were drawn and the lights out. Aziraphale was curled up in a deep sleep in his out of place bed.

At the sound of the door chime Crowley burst in to the front room, armed with the butter knife he’d just been using. Upon seeing a small, somewhat frail girl standing at the entrance wearing a Doctor Who shirt and, now, a perplexed expression at the sight of the strange bed-island in the middle of the shop, he did not relax in the slightest.

“We’re closed,” he hissed.

“I can see that.” The girl didn’t seem at all intimidated by the hostility but still spoke in a whisper, as though trying to shrink away even in her presence.

“I was looking for…” spindly fingers fumbled in a pocket and she produced a small scrap of paper. 

Crowley lowered his weapon and took it.

“Spiritual Healing — Corner of 41/1 Brooker and Webb St, Soho.”

Well, that was the bookshop’s address, was this some kind of stupid prank by hell… or heaven? The latter didn’t seem the type for pranks and Hell would surely be more violent in their efforts. Unbeknownst to him, Crowley was close to the truth in suspecting unearthly intervention but God didn’t play pranks: the girl, Lila, had been compelled to find the shop by the voice of God.

“Ah, no. We don’t do that here. Sorry, try somewhere else.” Crowley handed back the paper but the girl didn’t leave. She stayed in place, casting an eye over to the angel asleep under the tangled mass of covers.

“D’you live here?” As curiosity overtook her, her voice had more strength to it now.

“No, no. Just… going through some stuff.” Crowley muttered.

“I think that’s why I’m here.” She stepped forward “I’m Lila,” 

Somehow the demon saw a shadow of something he’d seen in Aziraphale in the girl and tentative shook the hand she offered. 

“I’m living on the streets at the moment. Well, kinda couch surfing between treatments.” She registered the look of shock on the demon’s face. “Oh no, I’m not sick or anything. There’s actually nothing wrong with me, it’s just sometimes they put me in hospital.” She’d taken a seat on a pile of books, looking altogether exhausted.

“If you’re not sick, why do you go to hospital?” 

“People get mad when I _don’t eat._ ” The last few words hanging in the air between them and, oh, Crowley had known there were humans out there who were like this and he’d never quite connected the dots but it was eerily similar to what the angel was going through.

His eyes flicked back to the bed.

“Come on, I’ll make you a cup of tea.” He ushered the girl towards the kitchen. She followed somewhat reluctantly in spite of her previous refusal to leave.

“Only if I can make it myself.” She piped up.


	9. Chapter 9

It was an intricate ritual. Crowley sat at the table as Lila stirred the black tea 3 times clockwise, then 6 times counterclockwise, two taps of the spoon on the side of the cup before she sank in to the chair opposite him. Despite being made according to her specifications by the girl herself, she still regarded the cup with the air of a frightened rabbit and suddenly Crowley was sitting opposite an angel who was holding a croissant gingerly at arms length, and picking at a single tea biscuit, and who didn’t let Crowley make him tea anymore.

“Your friend, is he okay?”

Crowley gave a strained smile before deciding that this girl _knew_. If there was anyone they needed at the moment, it was someone like her.

“He— he’s not been eating very well lately.” The demon buried his face in his hands. If he was going to be vulnerable, he damn well wasn’t going to make eye contact at the very least.

“Why?” Lila inwardly cursed her choice of question. It was the kind of thing that would tempt her to punch the asker in the face. So reductive, so insensitive. But the man didn’t seem put out, from his dejected puddle on the table. She’d seen it before though. It was the posture of the hopeless. A posture which said “I don’t know why” and “Why can’t I fix it” all rolled in to one.

Crowley put minimal effort in to fabricating a version of events that didn’t start with “An angel and a demon…”, rather, explained that his friend Ezra (the full name alone would derail the whole conversation before it’d started) had a falling out with his mum, a crisis of faith wherein she couldn’t accept his choices in life. Now, maybe, he would be cast out of the family.

“— And, he just feels so needlessly guilty about everything. He seems to believe they’ll accept him again if he just—“ Crowley faltered.

“Takes more control?” Lila offered and he nodded in to his hands.

“It’s strange. I don’t know why I came here exactly. I was just at the library and I saw the address on the noticeboard, and followed it blindly but it’s almost as if…” she paused and raised the teacup to her lips to bask in the steam, before deciding better of it and placing it back down. Crowley had dug himself out of his moping and was now watching curiously. 

But before she had a chance to continue, there was a hoarse cough and they startled as Aziraphale wandered blearily in to the room, wrapped in a blanket.

He hadn’t seemed to register the guest’s presence, but sat in a chair that Crowley pulled out for him.

“Go on,” Crowley prompted.

“Oh, uh, I left home when I was 16. I’d had issues before then. I had anorexia in my early teens and it comes back in waves. Then I began dating my best friend. I don’t think either of us realised it, we sort of fell in to it but then, things started to fall apart. You see, my family wasn’t happy with my girlfriend and, suddenly, they were gone and I was alone. Well, not quite alone. I lived with my girlfriend and her parents for a while but that came undone and when we broke up, my family didn’t want me back.” Lila was staring vacantly in to space, somewhere above Crowley’s right shoulder until she caught herself. But then she noticed that the other’s attention had shifted as well, the two men were staring at each other quite intently, with a sort of wonderment.

“That’s terrible, darling.” The one in the blanket piped up softly.

“No, that’s not terrible.” Crowley slammed his hand down on the table angrily. “That’s fucked up. I’m sorry but your own family cast you out for that? Bastards the lot of them.” He hissed. Aziraphale raised a hand to placate him.

“Look my dear, it is what it is.”

This had the opposite effect.

“It is what it is?! C’est la fucking vie that narrow minded arseholes have the bloody right to send a kid packing for what, for feeling love? Because it didn’t quite suit them. Nope,” he raised his hands resignedly and turned to Lila.

“You don’t need them in your life.”

“Yes but, I keep thinking that if I explain to them that it was a mistake. A misunderstanding. That I won’t do it again. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll have me back.”

“Did you love this girl?”

“Yes, of course I did.”

“So you’d be lying to them,”

“Yeah, but it’s for the greater good.” At Lila’s words the man looked pointedly at his blanket-wrapped counterpart.

“Girl— Lila— yes, listen to me.” He spoke slowly, slightly louder than before, as if projecting to an audience. “Your family is supposed to love you for who you are, you aren’t supposed to change yourself to meet their ideal. How would life be if they took you back in?”

Lila grimaced.

“Well, it wouldn’t be bad but—“

“But would you be happy? Would you feel safe and cared for/“

“No, not really.”

“They aren’t your people then.” Crowley said simply, and leaned back in his chair.

“Who’s supported you since you’ve moved out?”

“My ex-girlfriend’s family, oh they’re lovely and they didn’t want me to leave but I thought if I just got away from things and made some distance my family would want to be closer to me again and—“

“And it hasn’t happen?” Crowley finished. She nodded mutely and took her turn to bury her face in her hands.

“I ended it with her because I didn’t want to have to choose a side. My family, they used to worry so much about me when I was relapsing and I thought that, now I wasn’t with her anymore, they’d help me fix _this_ again.” Her hands reached up to tug gently on her hair, which came out at the touch. Crowley’s breath caught in his throat.

“I can’t do it alone.”

“You don’t have to do it alone. But you don’t need them to save you. You have people on your side, who want the best for you, and they’re what matters when things get difficult.” 

He looked up tentatively at the angel, who was regarding the exchange with wonderment. His lip was trembling, forehead creasing slightly as he processed the conversation he’d just witnessed.

At Crowley’s words, Lila was crying. Whether it was out of sadness, at her loss, or relief, out of hope, she lay her head down on the woodwork and let the tears flow freely. But then suddenly Aziraphale was crying too: more, restrained, Aziraphale-like cry, wherein the tears rolled silently down his cheeks and his eyes met Crowley’s and he was mouthing something, what was it? _Oh._

_Thank you_

_Thank you_

_Thank you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one day I'll get to the point™, I'm trying to wind it up, it's getting there. wish my serotonin deprived brain could make things a bit less angsty but we'll see how we go.


	10. Chapter 10

They stayed huddled around the table for a few more hours.

Once Lila found her voice, she was animated and unapologetic.

Crowley loved it.

They talked about all manner of things, art and tv shows. She used the past tense to talk about everything, and it didn’t go unnoticed. She had liked science fiction novels, and studying Shakespeare in school, and having pancakes for breakfast on the weekends. She avoided talking about the future and when she did it was with broad strokes, like an omniscient narrator of humanity. She never talked about things on her terms. It was a story she’d not carved out a role for herself in. So when dusk fell and Crowley gently asked her where she would be staying tonight, it was no surprise that she just looked back at him blankly.  
“I hadn’t quite—“

Aziraphale had fallen asleep at his chair hours ago, head lolling to one side and dead to the world.  
Crowley looked from Lila to the slumbering angels and an idea occurred to him. Sort of a two-birds-one-stone kind of thing. Not that he was for killing birds, he resolutely avoided that phrase because it irked him. He was tired and couldn’t think of anything else, _okay?_

“Have you had anything to eat today?” Crowley leaned towards the girl. He saw her posture immediately become defensive. She floundered slightly, as if trying to think of an example of sustenance before shrugging and pointing at her half-empty stone-cold cup of tea.

“And some other stuff.” The defensiveness leaked in to her tone.

“Angel, angel, wake up.” The demon nudged his friend and he awoke with a start.

“Wha — what?”

"I was wondering if…” Crowley hesitated, this could go one of many ways and he wasn’t quite in the mood for another argument. “I was wondering if you’d like to make Lila some of your crepes.”

Aziraphale flinched slightly, but his worn expression softened when he saw the young girl wilting beside him.

“Well, of course, certainly. She can’t go home without some supper.” He heaved himself up and started bustling about, though his movements seemed to indicate the air around them had become viscous like honey and the man was wading through it.

Lila looked at Crowley. Obviously, and she couldn’t blame the man, Angel (was that really his name?) hadn’t been keeping up with the conversation in the slightest.

“She actually doesn’t have a home to go to at the moment.” Crowley cleared his throat and shifted in his chair slightly. Angel’s hands stilled in the midst of rummaging through a drawer of pots and pans.

“Doesn’t have a—“

His face quivered, lips downturned and Lila swore she saw tears beginning to form. She almost wished Crowley hadn’t said anything, it’d be far more comfortable to curl up on a doorstep in the winter chill than watch this man breakdown at those words. He was so empathic, it was almost like a curse.

It seemed that empathy didn’t come as naturally to Crowley, she noticed. Whilst Angel unrestrainedly radiated compassion and goodness, the other man was more guarded and refined. But that made it all the more special when Lila saw a chink in his armour. She saw it every time Crowley looked at the other man.

“Well, you can stay here of course.” Aziraphale sniffed and hurried about setting up the ingredients. “As long as you want, forever, you’re such a sweet girl. Oh, I’ll find you a bedroom and you can help me protect the books.” His expression had quickly changed from heartbreak to joy.

Lila had a few questions. There was a lot to unpack in what Angel had just said, but he’d busied himself measuring out flour and sugar, so she kept her questions to herself. How does one “ _find_ ” a bedroom? Secondly, this was a bookstore, right, surely he’d meant to say help him “ _sell_ ” them?

Maybe he wanted her to be a security guard: all of her five foot nothing and build like a toothpick.

She was distracted from the bizarreness of his words as Crowley got up to help the man chop strawberries. His eyes fixed on the angel, a warm smile on his lips. _Oh_ , there it was again. Absolute adoration.

Lila wasn’t one for hot food. She preferred packaged food that told her exactly-what-to-expect and recoiled at the thought of feeling anything less than empty. Which was why, among other things, she favoured popcorn and rice cakes with the smallest sliver of marmalade. Sometimes she’d scrounge up the change to get the cookies from McDonald’s, they were bland and boring but also screamed of childhood. It was perhaps the only food she consumed where she was blissfully ignorant to their calorie count. In this case, sentimentality had won out.

There was a plate of steaming hot crepes in front of her, with lashings of strawberry jam and cream and fresh strawberries. The smell was unlike anything she’d ever experienced and, above anything, left her with a feeling of warmth that she couldn’t quite get from huddling close to heaters or nursing a cup of hot tea.  
Nonetheless, she instinctively leaned back in her chair a fraction. Crowley had sat down with his plate. Angel was still fussing over the stove.

“Aziraphale? Are you going to join us?”

Ah, he did have a name and it was quite the mouthful.

“Oh, what, ha! Yes, quite.” The man had the sudden demeanour of a baby rabbit in a tiger enclosure. He hadn’t made a plate up for himself but, suddenly, as if between blinks, a plate of crepes appeared on the table where he’d be seated.

Crowley smirked and other man baulked.

“ _Nice try_ ,” the demon muttered. “We’re eating together. For Lila.”

Lila was instantly embarrassed. She didn’t want anyone going out of their way to help her and she could see the fear framed on Az-ee-ra-fell’s face at the sight of the plate.

“No, no. It’s fine I’m not even hungry anyway.” She pushed her chair back and made to rise from the table but Crowley grabbed her arm.

“Please.” His voice broke slightly. Oh, there it was again, the chink in the armour. It was difficult to say no.

“Okay.” She sat down again, and Aziraphale pulled up a chair beside.

Now it was a matter of who’d break first. Crowley had already dug in to his stack, watching the other two as he chewed enthusiastically.

“Better than 18th century Paris.” He declared, wiping his mouth with a napkin. Whatever _that_ meant, it made Aziraphale crack a small smile.

“You know dear, your poor body must be starving. You’re still growing and your body needs fuel to grow.” Aziraphale wheedled to Lila as she trembled over her plate.

“Hypocrite.” She snapped. Crowley choked slightly and hastily turned his laugh in to a hacking cough.

Aziraphale was unfazed. “You don’t deserve to punish yourself for what others can’t accept. Changing yourself, giving in to your demons, is not going to bring about acceptance. It’s not their acceptance that matters though. It’s your own. You need to begin to take pride in who you are, rather than trying to tear yourself down from the inside.”

Crowley wished he had a tape recorder so that he could play back those words and make Aziraphale actually listen to, actually hear what he’d just said but the angel was so focussed on healing the girl beside them that he was quite sure Aziraphale wasn’t applying any of his words to himself.

“Yeah, well.” She bit back. “What if I don’t matter?”

“ _Everyone_ matters.”

“I don’t like myself enough to do it for myself.”

Aziraphale looked shocked at the confession.

Lila felt compelled to fill the silence with a bit of hope for the man.

“Y’know someone in treatment said to me that it’s okay if start off doing it for other people. Like, you eat so that they worry less and you make them happy and in turn that makes you feels happy then somewhere along the way, you find yourself. You start doing it for yourself. Fake it ‘till you make it and the like.” She trailed off. “I used to try for my family. I don’t think I can even fake it without them.”

  
“What about this girl?” Asked Crowley. “You said that she’d still support you.”

Lila fidgeted with her cutlery.

“I don’t want her to see me, like this.” She huffed. “I’m a lot worse than when I left her. It’d hurt her, that’s the last thing I want to do.”

“It would hurt— **her**?” Aziraphale frowned slightly.

“Well, she _for-the-love-of-god-I-don’t-know-why_ really cares about me. She wants the best for me. She wants me to treat myself kindly.” She wrinkled her nose as if she couldn't quite fathom it.

There was horror dawning on the angel’s facing now: a horror which quickly transitioned to confusion, then to guilt, then to heartbreak.

“All this time, my dear.” He murmured. “All this time and I didn’t stop and think for one second how this affected you.” He looked to Crowley, tears swimming in his eyes, grabbing the others hands across the table. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ve been so selfish.”

He braced himself for Crowley’s next words, the caustic agreement that told him he had, in fact, unkind in his pursuit of heaven. From the demon’s eyes, it must have looked like he was doing everything possible to try and get away from Crowley— abandon him, reject his friendship and rejoin his old herd. When Crowley was the only one who’d cared enough to stay. Despite the fact that staying meant watching Aziraphale self-destruct and he was powerless to do anything but just be there. The demon rendered absolutely distraught by the angel disintegrating in his presence.

“Don’t apologise to me.” Crowley hissed, but it was without a trace of anger. “Eat your bloody crepes, angel.”

Aziraphale gave a watery chuckle and moved his hands over to pick up his knife and fork.

  
“Tackle this one together?” He leaned towards Lila, linking his arm in hers. Suddenly, she wasn’t eating for herself, rather, as encouragement for the emotional, starved man to her right. She picked up her cutlery.

“Of course.”

They kept their arms linked in solidarity and, as such, it was a struggle to get the fork to her mouth. But when the ripe strawberries burst on her tongue and the miraculously still warm crepe danced on her tastebuds, all she could do was giggle at their clumsy display.

Soon Aziraphale was joining in laughing, and they were so absorbed they missed Crowley discreetly brush away a tear before returning to his own meal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going to add one last chapter where the A.Z. realises who sent Lila and the support each other and it’s all mushy I’m happy crying and I haven’t even written it yet 🙈  
> I’ll upload maybe later today (29/7)


	11. Chapter 11

Lila flitted between the bookshop and her ex-girlfriend, Robin’s, house. Somehow, Aziraphale had found a room for her to stay in, and presented it with the air of someone who hadn’t quite known it was there before. The walls and ceiling were a rich mahogany. In the slant of the ceiling were a scatter of glow-in-the-dark stars that glowed like pinpricks when she turned off the lights of an evening. It seemed to have been Crowley’s doing, at least, he took the time to point out the constellations, insisting that it was very accurate. 

“I’m very proud of this one.” He said fondly of a small star cluster, and Lila felt like maybe she was missing something, but didn’t mind. 

Every morning, Lila and Aziraphale would meet at the kitchen table over crepes, until Lila’s hands stopped shaking slightly and then they became more adventurous. One morning it was eggs on toast, then croissants and maybe they both tore at the pastry a little bit as they ate but in the end their plates were cleared and they were both smiling happily. Being surrounded by so many books quickly made Lila curious and frustrated, in equal measure. For the last couple of years she’d loved the idea of books, the pull of their stories, and wanted so desperately to just read. She’d long since resigned that it was an exercise in futility. Between lightheadedness and the constant intrusive thoughts, she figured she’d sooner be able to run a marathon than finish a book. Though the former would be more concerning an endeavour should she attempt to. 

A couple of days since their meeting and Lila noticed there was a pile of books accumulating next to the armchair she usually dozed in. She bent down and ran her hands over the dusty covers: a Jules Verne collection, Dune, and what looked to be the world’s oldest copy of War of the Worlds.

“What’re these?” She brought one of the novels with her as she and Aziraphale sat down for lunch (cottage pie that had come out of the oven but Lila hadn’t seen the man actually preparing). He practically beamed.

“I thought you might enjoy those ones, dear.”

Lila put the book aside and looked at him doubtfully.

The last three days had done wonders. His hair was beginning to shine again, his eyes carried a warmth that Lila had not seen and he was more animated to say the least. He had a personality, and funny mannerisms, and an absolute hatred of nosy customers. It was as if, quite suddenly, a man who had been simply an outline of a person was flooded with life.

“I don’t re—“ the admission died in her throat at the glow on the man’s face. “I’ll give them a look.” She said begrudgingly, trying to quash the slight tinge of excitement from her voice.

Crowley slunk in to the chair beside them and glowered at his cottage pie. Order had been restored such that he was, once more, far less enthusiastic about the offer of lunch than the angel opposite him but he saw when Aziraphale’s eyes faltered, or his fingers began to wrap around his wrist, or pinch at his skin. He saw each little vulnerability and countered it by taking the lead, and grasping his angel’s wandering hand as they ate together.

They ate in a comfortable silence for a while. It was comfortable between them, but Lila’s head was plagued by “what if”’s. Finally, she couldn’t maintain the silence.

“What d’you think would have happened if I hadn’t been told to come here?” She pondered. “If there hadn’t been some kind of miraculous drive pulling me towards here that day.”

At the word “miraculous”, Aziraphale dropped his fork on the floor with a loud clatter. He was too busy staring at Lila to worry about where it had got to.

“How did you get here, dear?” Perhaps it was because he hadn’t been entirely lucid upon her arrival, but the angel had never thought to question why Lila had showed up at their door. He chalked it up to fate. Now it was beginning to look like Fate.

Lila recounted how she’d found the shop’s address on a noticeboard and, for some reason, decided to abandon her day’s plans to seek it out.

“It was almost like I was being guided.” She mused. “Sometimes when I was walking through the streets, it felt as though someone was holding my hand and dragging me forward, gently, but persistently. When I found the shop, I nearly had a change of heart. Then I thought—“ she trailed off, looking slightly embarrassed.

“Go on,”

“Well, I thought I heard this lady’s voice. Maybe she was talking to someone else, I didn’t see her, although it was quite clear. It was quite bizarre, actually.” She missed the knowing look that Crowley gave Aziraphale as she struggled to recall the exact words.

“She said “Brave girl, there are angels watching over you. I do not wish anyone to suffer in my name.””

She bit her lip. “I don’t know who she was talking to, I don’t know what her name even is, but it somehow gave me the strength to knock on the door.”

There was a second clatter, knife joining fork on the scuffed wooden floor.

She looked up in time to see the men lunge for each other, Aziraphale’s elation muffled by their embrace.

Crowley was crying as he rested his chin on the angel’s shoulder. He shot Lila a small glare that seemed to say “you didn’t see that”. She was confused. Happy, but confused. Doubly so when they broke apart and began to talk.

“She sent her. She really doesn’t mind if we’re…” Aziraphale struggled to find the word “..friends.”

Crowley didn’t push it, that was a conversation for another time. Rather, he guided the angel back to his seat, their hands linked at the pinky finger. A silent promise that no walls remained between them.

Lila smirked slightly. 

She’d come in to the story too late to discern the plot, and she was sure she was missing something big, but this was undoubtably a happy ending if ever she saw one.

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you everyone for your kind words and kudos! This has been a journey of getting back in to writing after a 5+ year ED-fuelled hiatus and, honestly, it’s just reaffirmed everything I told myself recovery would be. I’m glad (but also sad) that my descriptions resonated with so many of you.  
> 
> 
> I'm on Tumblr at [@sorrens](https://sorrens.tumblr.com)
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please feel free to browse my other Good Omens fics. I've written a few AUs, some crack, some questionable use of internet humour, probably a good pick-me-up after this angst fest.


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